Quality management

KTA 1401 Certificate of the BGR - Confirmation of the quality management system of the BGR by IMS-Zert GmbH Source: BGR

The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) is the government's central institution for geoscientific matters. With respect to the configuration of national facilities pursuant to Section 9a (3) of the Atomic Energy Act (AtG) and on the search for and selection of a site for high-level radioactive waste on the basis of the StandAG, BGR assists the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung (BGE*, a federally owned company for final disposal) by undertaking geoscientific and geotechnical activities.

BGR has implemented a quality management system (QMS) to systematically safeguard compliance with the safety objectives stipulated in the Atomic Energy Act, and to satisfy the associated regulations. The QMS ensures compliance with the quality requirements. Quality stipulations are also associated with the Atomic and the Mining Law, as well as the regulations ensuing from them.

The quality management system reflects the regulations of the Kerntechnische Ausschuss (nuclear committee) "General specifications for quality assurance" (KTA 1401), as well as the DIN EN ISO 9001.

In order to comply with the the quality specifications, an external certifier was sought. Since October 28th, 2022, the IMS certification service company mbH certifies to BGR that the management system satisfy the requirements of KTA 1401 (2017-11).

Quality management officers or those responsible for quality management ensure that the quality specifications are implemented.

An integral part of the in-situ information system (INIS) is long-term archiving to preserve the evidential value of the acquired raw data. For this purpose, BGR joined the "Federal digital interim archive" (DZAB) as a pilot partner. The DZAB project provides BGR with TR-03125-conform long-term archiving.

The geomechanical laboratory at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) was inspected in 2018 by a German accreditation company (Deutsche Akkreditierungsstelle GmbH, DAkks), and has been accredited since 07.11.2018 as a testing laboratory pursuant to DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2018 (standard applying to laboratory competence). This supplements the previous stipulations in the "DIN/ISO EN 9001:2015" and "KTA 1401" standards. The accreditation of the geomechanical laboratory encompasses geophysical investigations, including sampling solid and saline rocks, and sample preparation.

*) formerly BfS. With effect from 25.04.2017, the Federal government transferred the exercise of its responsibilities pursuant to Section 9a (3) Sentence 2 Second half sentence of the Atomic Energy Act to the Bundesgesellschaft für Endlagerung mbH (BGE).